I have a Dell 400SC and another SC420, both running OBSD (3.5 and 3.6,
respectively). I just topped them both up to a full 4GB of memory.

The odd thing is that the SC420, running 3.6, doesn't see all the memory: dmesg says

real mem = 3613552640 (3528860K)
avail mem = 3290484736 (3213364K)

The 400SC, running 3.5, has its own little problem with this, but appears to see
all the bits:

real mem = 4025548800 (4294704192K)
avail mem = 3730812928 (3643372K)

Is this a known problem? Anyone have a patch? The BIOS sees all the memory in
both cases.

Thanks,
chris

>I have a Dell 400SC and another SC420, both running OBSD (3.5 and 3.6,
>respectively). I just topped them both up to a full 4GB of memory.
>
> The odd thing is that the SC420, running 3.6, doesn't see all the memory:
> dmesg says
>
> real mem = 3613552640 (3528860K)
> avail mem = 3290484736 (3213364K)
>
> The 400SC, running 3.5, has its own little problem with this, but appears
> to see all the bits:
>
> real mem = 4025548800 (4294704192K)
> avail mem = 3730812928 (3643372K)

Try the latest bios firmware, maybe they differ.
http://support.dell.com/support/down...4 1&devlib=13

Otherwise read `man 8 boot.conf` and look for `machine mem` section.
I'm running a couple obsd 3.7 servers with 4gigs of mem without any
problems,
i did had this issue once with an old compaq proliant server once.
Instead of 265mb it only noticed 64mb or so.


-Bas

Bas Keur wrote:
>>I have a Dell 400SC and another SC420, both running OBSD (3.5 and 3.6,
>>respectively). I just topped them both up to a full 4GB of memory.
>>
>>The odd thing is that the SC420, running 3.6, doesn't see all the memory:
>>dmesg says
>>
>>real mem = 3613552640 (3528860K)
>>avail mem = 3290484736 (3213364K)
>>
>>The 400SC, running 3.5, has its own little problem with this, but appears
>>to see all the bits:
>>
>>real mem = 4025548800 (4294704192K)
>>avail mem = 3730812928 (3643372K)
>
>

It seems that the SC420 architecture steals a bunch of RAM for onboard video and
some PCI registers, so this is "normal" ... if annoying.